He's been told the Sydney specialists commute Mondays to Fridays and at other times there is on-call cover by phone.

The fly in service has cost $5.8 million in salaries and half a million dollars in travel, reflecting daily flight costs.

Mr Veitch was told the psychiatrists are a stable workforce, who provide a high quality service and that a psychiatry career medical officer has moved to Wagga this year and started work at the mental health unit.

Opposition spokesman for Health in New South Wales Dr Andrew McDonald says the money spent on locums is enough for four psychiatrists in Wagga Wagga.

He says far too much money is spent on locums at almost $100 million a year statewide, and Broken Hill alone spends $2 million a month on locums.

"The only time that you have a sustainable on-call roster is to have four specialists. The current budget has enough money in it for four full time specialists in Wagga," said Dr McDonald.

"That money would buy you a complete mental health psychiatric team, not just one fly in fly out psychiatrist who is here today gone tomorrow."

Dr Andrew McDonald says for years the health service has struggled to attract psychiatrists, but the situation has improved.

"It is now time now that we are finally training enough young doctors to redouble the efforts to get more specialists," he said.

"There are ways of getting more specialists, there's many doctors from all over the world who are perfectly competent and able to work in Wagga."

"It's time to readvertise and see if we can get one or two psychiatrists at least then that would reduce the dependence on locums and start to build up the service."

Murrumbidgee Local Health District says it's employed a Psychiatry Career Medical Officer this year who serves Gissing House and Community Mental Health patients five days a week.

The District says it's currently advertising for psychiatrists for Wagga's new mental health unit and in the next few months, it will advertise for a Clinical Director of Psychiatry to be based in Wagga.